


Headlights, Staring Bleak

by Lucky107



Category: Alan Wake (Video Game)
Genre: Abstract, Animal Death, Bright Falls, Experimental Style, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 00:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7736542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Together they drive aimlessly through the dark countryside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Headlights, Staring Bleak

**Author's Note:**

> Late Goodbye - Poets of the Fall - 2004

The air is cold.

It's not chilly—it's cold.  Even with a jean jacket wrapped around her shoulders, Nora's painfully aware of the frigid chill.  It seeps through the fabric, dancing across her skin, leaving only shivers in its wake.  She's small in the passenger seat, exposing plenty of blind spots to the cold.

Her arms cross involuntarily, hugging her jacket tighter in an attempt to preserve some of her remaining warmth.  The man in the driver's seat glances for only a second when she moves, barely long enough to register that she's awake.

"Are you sure this is alright?"  Jake Fischer, he calls himself.  He's a journalist - an outsider, just like Nora - who had come to town to interview a therapist on account of his most recent book.  That same therapist would have liked to have had a session with Nora on account of her recent nightmares.

Together they drive aimlessly through the dark countryside.

When she approached him at the diner, she'd come with one request: " _Jake.  Help me._ "

Getting into his car, no more than strangers, they drove.  Slowly - surely - the grey clouds begin to drizzle, trapping them in a downpour typical of autumn in the Pacific Northwest.  Nora stares at Jake's face in the dim low reflecting from the headlights, searching for traces of uncertainty.

"It's fine," Nora says in a small voice.  Over the sound of raindrops pelting the roof, she can barely be heard.  "I don't... I can't go to that lodge."

Jake reaches out blindly, searching for her hand with his own.  His eyes never leave the road, staring firm into the darkness that engulfs the world mere meters ahead.  Even with the high beams on, it's become dangerously difficult to see.  As long as they stay close, though - just like this - they'll have each other.

Nora's not afraid; she's more afraid to stand still than she is to run head-first into the night.

She takes his hand.

The stone-like expression on his face never changes.  "I know."

Suddenly there's a shadow in the road.  It's large and bulky - a deer, maybe - and there's nothing Jake can do.  When it stops in the headlights, a blur in the rain, he slams down on the brakes and the tires screech on the wet pavement.  They're thrown forward into the dashboard, where Nora can feel the bruise just beneath her ribs.

"Jesus," Jake whispers.  Nora feels woozy, but says nothing.  "I have to go and check it out.  Wait right here, Nora."

Offering a stiff nod, the younger girl leans up against the car door in obvious pain.  The impact from the dashboard slowly travels throughout her body, leaving her feeling sick and sore.  It takes everything she has to hunker down into a comfortable resting position, but she manages.

Jake unlocks the door and climbs out, disappearing into a dark veil of rain.

The deer, lying on the damp pavement, breathes weakly.  Her legs spasm out of time, a result of her impending death, and his immediate response is nausea.  The animal is looking directly at him - directly through him - and he feels his chest tighten.

Slowly, he redirects his attention to the car.  One headlight is completely smashed.  There's hair tangled in the grille, short and tan, but any blood is immediately washed away into the pavement.  Besides a little bit of bent steel, the only real concern is that headlight, but even that won't stop him tonight.

"Damn it," he hisses, heading back to the car.

Nora's gone.

\- - -

The water is shockingly cold, enveloping her body like the coaxing arms of the dead as it pulls her further and further into its depths.  Whatever light exists beyond the surface begins to fade, leaving her completely alone in a cage of darkness.  Her eyes are blind - she cannot see.  Her voice is hoarse - she cannot scream.  Her limbs are heavy - she cannot move.

She can only feel and the pressure on her chest - on her lungs - leaves her asphyxiated.

Then, in slow and powerful rays, light begins to break through the cracks of her dark prison.  It's a blinding light, a light both near and far, a light that lingers just out of reach.  It calls to her - beckons her - but she cannot move.

Momentarily she thinks she hears his voice—whose voice?—and she pines for a release from this suffocation.  Floating in the dark, powerless as the light begins to fade, burning out in a hopeless decay, she can do nothing.

_It's so dark..._

Nora awakens, cold and wet and all alone, on the muddy shore of Cauldron Lake.


End file.
